By PETER DUJARDIN, Daily Press
HAMPTON, Va. (AP) — Larry Rhames Jr. wasn’t doing well a couple of years ago.
Some good friends and relatives had died. He lost his job as a cook at a restaurant in Hampton. That meant she had no health insurance, which she needed for her antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications. His ex-girlfriend wouldn’t let him see his daughter.
He even tried to kill himself, he said.
Things could have gotten even worse in February 2020, when Rhames was charged with assaulting a police officer, an automatic felony in Virginia.
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Instead, that encounter with the law is what changed things.
The assault charge landed the 36-year-old man in Hampton’s new mental health court program. And on Jan. 19, Rhames was one of the first four graduates of the Behavioral Health Docket, an alternative program for defendants with mental health issues who are seen as good candidates to change their ways.
Rhames was initially arrested after police were called to a Hampton home for a domestic incident, with court documents saying he lashed out and bit into a patch on the jacket arm of a responding police officer.
But today, Rhames is taking his medication. He is attending therapy sessions. She recently got a new dog, Gemini, a bullmastiff-pit bull mix who had been abused and “reminded me of me.”
And Rhames, who recently worked at a 7-Eleven, is embarking on a new career as a truck driver. You are in training for a commercial driver’s license, or CDL, to learn how to drive a tractor-trailer.
“When you go in there and they cheer you on and let you know they’re for you, it makes a world of difference,” Rhames said of the show. “It’s almost like the family I never had. It’s the support I never had growing up.”
His goal, he said, is to finally have “my own place, my own place, my own car, my own stuff.” He also wants his 8-year-old daughter to see him as a provider. He is working to catch up on child support and hopes the girl’s mother will allow him to visit her for extended stays.
“I want to be there for my daughter,” Rhames said.
PROVIDE A POSITIVE PUSH
Hampton’s behavioral health record is one of 11 such records statewide, including locally in Norfolk, Newport News and Chesapeake. “The dockets … are a response to the overrepresentation of people with behavioral health disorders in the criminal justice system,” says the state judiciary.
The programs are selective, with defendants designated by their attorneys or others. And only a fraction of cases are diverted to the program: The 11 dockets enrolled just 231 participants statewide last year.
Specialized programs offer defendants—charged with relatively minor crimes but who often suffer from serious mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia—access to treatment and community resources.
The objective is to offer an alternative path that can end the revolving door of the prison. It is a carrot rather than a stick approach, offering those who complete the program the opportunity to have their charges reduced or substantially reduced.
For about a year, participants must check weekly with their pretrial probation officers, case managers, and Community Services Board counselors to make sure they stay out of trouble, go to work or school, take medications and attend counselling. .
A “peer support specialist” provides additional assistance. Court dates with a judge start every two months, then move to monthly and every six weeks as the show progresses, with the judge providing guidance and pep talks.
“As a judge, there’s not a lot of opportunity to really interact with the people that come before me,” said Hampton General District Court Judge Corry Smith, who is overseeing the new case. “I’m calling the balls and strikes. That’s all I do. But to be able to see that I can have an impact, a positive impact, in people’s lives, is a big thing.”
THE FIRST HAMPTON GRADUATES
The four recent graduates from Hampton’s first behavioral health file faced similar felony charges: assault and battery on a police officer.
Although assault and battery is typically a misdemeanor in Virginia, it automatically escalates to a felony, with a minimum of six months in jail, if the victim is a law enforcement officer.
But upon completion of the program, the four graduates’ positions were reduced or eliminated altogether.
A 21-year-old woman was charged with a felony charge of kicking and spitting on a Hampton police officer in May 2020 while under the influence of alcohol, and was charged with vandalizing a home and being drunk in public. All charges were dropped after the January 19 graduation.
“I feel like my mental health is 10 times better than before,” said the woman, who preferred not to have her name used. “Every time I came to court, the judge said that she believed in me and that I was not alone.”
Another graduate, a 35-year-old woman, was in emergency custody after a suicide attempt in January 2020 when police say she kicked and punched two officers. One felony charge was dropped and the other was reduced to a misdemeanor. He got 90 days in jail, all suspended, upon completion of the program.
A third woman, also 35, was under an emergency custody order at Sentara CarePlex in May 2020 when she told an officer she wanted to leave. When he told her he needed to stay for his evaluation, police said she lunged at the officer and punched him in the face with an open hand.
That was reduced to a misdemeanor and he served 60 days behind bars, all suspended.
Rhames, meanwhile, had his felony assault charge reduced to a misdemeanor, with a 90-day suspended jail term. Two other misdemeanors were dropped from the incident: resisting arrest and destruction of city property (the officer’s jacket).
“Not only did you succeed, but you thrived and transformed, and I’m proud of you for that,” Smith told the four graduates. “Your diagnosis does not define you. You define yourself.”
Smith said that of the four graduates, Rhames’ story struck her the most. “He was special to me,” she said. “If you had seen him the first day he came into this file, you wouldn’t recognize him. He wouldn’t look you in the eye.
Now, he said, he is reunited with his daughter. “The changes he was making, on his own, were so refreshing to me that I selfishly held on to him probably a little longer than I should have.”
In a recent interview with the Daily Press, Rhames talked about how far he’s come.
Rhames said his father wasn’t in the picture growing up, and he and his siblings faced abuse from another relative. Electricity and water bills went unpaid, and the family borrowed pots of water and ran extension cords next door.
Rhames was also behind in school due to learning disabilities and said he was never able to play sports or participate in other activities that interested him.
His brushes with the law, he said, began at age 12 when police in North Carolina “He mistook me for another person who was getting into cars.”
As an adult, he pleaded guilty to assaulting a Newport News police officer during an arrest in 2014 and later pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of a vehicle and assaulting a family member in Hampton in 2016.
Although he was still on probation at the time of his arrest in February 2020, his attorney, Hampton Assistant Public Defender Josh Flanders, “saw something in me” and pushed Rhames to be the first contestant on the new show. of Hampton.
Rhames agreed, saying it had changed his life.
“It’s a way to get better without feeling like you’re alone in your situation,” Rhames said. “They want you to be successful in whatever you are doing. And they have a whole team, a strong team, to push you along the way.”
Aside from pep talks, Judge Smith also listened to participants’ broader life concerns, with the show requiring participants to plan for the future and establish a “crisis plan” for the twists and turns of life. life.
“They want you to be prepared to handle whatever comes your way,” Rhames said, saying he “couldn’t wait to go to court” because of the positive vibes.
The program is also helping you launch a new career.
Rhames mentioned to someone on the show that he could see himself as a truck driver, that he liked the idea of being his own boss on the road.
“They encouraged me to do it, and that pushed me even more,” he said. “That support took me to a whole new level, and now I can see the path that I want to see.”
He recently obtained his CDL learner’s permit and is now embarking on a four-week training program to learn how to operate a tractor trailer.
While speaking to a reporter recently, Rhames received a call from a manager of a local workforce development program who said he would cover the $3,400 cost of truck driver training.
“I have been approved to go to school,” he said, growing more and more excited by the news. “I got the grant and I start on February 7. Oh, I’m so excited.”
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